‘Have you issued your statement to the press yet? Is that what the phone call was all about?’
‘I have no intention of speaking to the press today, Tamsyn. I will respond to questions if and when necessary. I was speaking to my father.’ There was a pause. ‘And Sofia.’
Tamsyn felt her heart lurch. ‘And?’
‘Sofia took it better than I expected. She seemed more resigned than upset. Which is a good thing.’
‘Like I said,’ Tamsyn observed. ‘She’s probably secretly pleased not to have to spend a lifetime with you.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, sweetheart,’ he said drily.
She wanted to tell him not to tease her like that, just like she wanted to tell him not to look at her with that sexy glint of amusement in his eyes. Mainly because she liked it. She liked it way too much. It made her want to do what she had vowed she wasn’t going to do—mainly to rush upstairs and get up close and personal with him. She cleared her throat. ‘And your father?’
For the first time, his face showed a flicker of darkness. ‘My father took the news less well. He was angry, which didn’t surprise me, but his concerns were focussed more on his island inheritance than on the people involved. No change there.’ His laugh was tinged with bitterness. ‘He seems to think that Sofia’s father might refuse to sell me the island now that I’ve jilted his daughter. I think it will depend on Sofia’s reaction, but better that than breaking her heart,’ he added harshly.
‘And if he’s right? If Sofia’s father won’t sell?’
‘Oh, if Sofia is okay, he’ll sell—don’t you worry about that.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because Tamsyn, everyone has their price’ He gave a cynical smile. ‘Even you.’
It was a timely reminder of her new husband’s cold-heartedness but Tamsyn forced he
rself not to react, instead fixing him with a look of interest. ‘Is your father coming to the wedding party?’
‘He said not, but I know his bluster of old and he’ll be there—if only because the cream of Athenian and international society will be attending and he’d hate to miss out.’
‘And in the meantime, we have a whole two week honeymoon to get through.’ Tamsyn resisted the temptation to chew on her fingernails which had been varnished silver to match her toes. ‘Wasn’t that a rather unnecessary addition to this sham marriage?’
‘I told you. We don’t want to make it look like a stunt.’ He leaned back in his chair to study her. ‘And we can make this as easy or as difficult as we like.’
Tamsyn wondered if he was out of his mind. Didn’t he realise that there was a constant battle raging inside her? That while her head was telling her not to have sex with her new husband—her body was urging her in the opposite direction. Did Xan know that every time she looked at him she wanted to touch him, even though to do so would be madness. Or that at night she was haunted by the memories of his hard body thrusting into hers and giving her pleasure, over and over again? Running her trembling fingertip round the edge of her crystal glass, she struggled to find a neutral topic. ‘Manalena seems very sweet,’ she said at last.
‘She is.’ He took a mouthful of wine, his expression mocking her.
‘Why did she used to look after you? Did your mother go out to work?’
‘No. But motherhood appealed to her about as much as being poor, and she didn’t care who knew it. Including me, just for the record. She went to great pains to assure me that some women simply weren’t maternal, and she was one of them.’
His words were terse and he spoke them as if they didn’t matter but they told her a lot, mainly that his mother had been emotionally distant. Tamsyn nodded, wondering just how far she could push him—without stopping to ask herself why she wanted to. ‘Do you think that’s what made you so...’
‘So what, Tamsyn?’ he questioned sardonically as her words tailed off.
‘So... I don’t know.’ She straightened her napkin so that it lay at a ninety-degree angle next to her place-setting, just as she would have done if she’d been at work. ‘So anti-love and marriage...’
He shrugged. ‘That’s what the psychologists would say, I guess.’
‘And was it bad?’ she questioned suddenly, her heart going out to him despite telling herself that he didn’t need her sympathy. ‘Your childhood, I mean?’
‘Bad enough. But I happened to like the independence which came about as a result of having a mother who was never there for me. The thought of having to answer to someone every hour of every day filled me with horror and still does.’ His eyes were like dark blue ice. ‘In future all my bios will say, he was briefly married. And you, agape mou, will have liberated me from the expectation which society heaps on every wealthy man, that he is not complete until he finds himself a suitable wife. You will have done me a big favour, Tamsyn.’ His lips curved into a reflective smile. ‘And that in itself is worth the money I’m paying you to wear my ring.’
His mocking words effectively terminated the conversation, but it left Tamsyn thinking that maybe they were more similar than she’d imagined, despite the great difference in their lifestyles.
‘So what now?’ she questioned, aware that they couldn’t sit amid the debris of their wedding breakfast all day.
His eyes gleamed. ‘Now that you’ve made lunch last as long as you possibly could?’